The Stiles Experiment
by Lilith Lunatic
Summary: ReAnimatorWillard crossover. Cowritten with Emily Eccentric. Willard Stiles, a prisoner in Bellevue Asylum, attracts attention from one odd student from Miskatonic University. But when plans go wrong, a Cat and a Cain have to stop the infestation?


**THE STILES EXPERIMENT**

PART ONE: THE SCHOLARLY VISITOR

There was a rustle and a snap as the large brown rat struggled into a sitting position.

"Why, hello there… I believe this will be a very interesting partnership…"

The rat screeched in agreement.

---

"He's right in here, Mr. West," a gruff voice said from outside Willard's door. Willard bit the inside of his lip hard enough to draw blood. He hated visiting hours. Too loud voices, outside voices. Hands that wanted to touch his face, his shoulders, his arms.

"It's Dr. West," a voice said, cultured and polite. A scholar's voice. "Thank you very much for your assistance."

"I'd be careful if I were you. He's a little unbalanced," the first voice said. Willard recognized it as the voice of one of the guards, who were constantly stomping around in the hall and shoving food in his face. Calling him Ratboy. He hated that grumbling, angry voice almost as much as he hated the cracked caterwauling of the other inmates. In his mind, every one of their rusty screeches turned into the voice of his mother: "Clark? Claaaark?"

"I don't think there will be any need to worry about that. I deal with this sort of condition on a daily basis," Dr. West assured. Soft voice, intelligent. But Willard didn't trust him. Doctors forced pills down his throat. And one day, a doctor would come to stick a needle in his arm and kill him, if he didn't behave.

Willard felt the comforting warmth of Melville's soft fur against the crook of his elbow. The rat ran down his sleeve and nestled comfortably against his wrist. Willard felt the thought of the grinning angry doctor with the needle full of cyanide fade from his mind immediately, like sugar dissolving in water.

"Mr. Stiles?"

The door had opened. Standing back-lit by the sickly fluorescent light of the outside was Dr. West. He didn't look anything like the impossibly tall, crazily grimacing doctor in his mind's eye. In fact, he was rather short, with a scholarly, timid face. His eyes goggled innocently from behind the thick glasses balanced on his nose.

The only thing he had in common with the death-doctor in Willard's head was the starched lab coat perched on his rounded shoulders.

Willard looked up at him and spoke in a voice that hadn't talked to anyone human in months. "Excuse...excuse me. Who are you?"

"I'm Dr. Herbert West. I'm in anthropology studies at Miskatonic University, though it isn't unheard of me to dabble in psychology. That was how I heard of your case. It was so fascinating that I couldn't resist an interview. Would you be so obliged?"

Willard felt hate rise up in the back of his throat like a bitter aftertaste. Hate for this deceivingly kind and harmless man with the quiet voice and the well-kept nails. "I'm not insane."

Melville nibbled at Willard's fingertips. There was an ominous scraping noise as Dr. West dragged the chair from the corner beside Willard's cot, sat down, took a notebook from the small leather satchel he carried, flipped it open, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

"Of course not," he said with conviction. "I myself don't believe in insanity, in the strictest sense. Only in different viewpoints. That's why I'm here, Mr. Stiles. To find out your viewpoint."

"Are you working for the newspaper?" Willard asked, cautiously.

"No. You must understand this is just for my personal notes. Anything said in this room will be entirely anonymous and confidential."

Willard ducked his head and stared at a far-off spot on the wall. For the first time, Dr. West noticed a hook-shaped scar curving from his forehead to the bridge of his prominent nose. It was ugly and blatant, yet somehow had the effect of making the rest of his face look oddly delicate. It was a look he'd always associated with Daniel-- too sensitive, too soft and vulnerable to be any use. Was this the vicious murderer he had been told about?

"I was trapped," Willard faltered. His eyes looked out-of-focus. "My mother was very sick. At work, my boss...he humiliated me in front of the whole office, just because he hated my father. I thought that was all there was ever going to be for me." Willard sniffed and looked up slightly. His eyes had a red, raw, teary look. A broken half-smile wavered on his bloodless lips. "That's when I found Socrates."

"Socrates?" Dr. West inquired gently. "Like the philosopher?"

"Yes!" Willard let out a gulping sob and dried his eyes furiously on the spinach-green sleeve of his inmate's uniform. Melville ran up his arm into his collar, where he waited patiently for Willard to recover. Dr. West was perplexed and slightly off-put by this sudden outburst. Then again, he found human emotion an altogether nauseating subject.

"He was always so smart, so brave. A leader. I was never like that," Willard continued.

Suddenly, he spoke in a very different voice-- not the voice of an abandoned child, but the voice of the cold-blooded killer the tabloids had proclaimed him as. "But they listened to me anyway."

"They?" Dr. West asked, intrigued. Finally, here was the man he had read about. A worthy partner.

"The rats. They'd do whatever I told them. I could make them rip, tear...do all the things I couldn't. I'd just say it and--" His voice cracked, as if he had just realized what he was saying. "You have to understand that it wasn't my idea! It was Ben's! He never listened to me; he always wanted to do things his own way! If Socrates were alive, he never would have let me go through with it!"

"Is this Ben someone that you knew?"

The muscles in Willard's face twitched spasmodically. "A rat. One of them. He always wanted to be the important one. He didn't understand that it was supposed to be Socrates."

Herbert looked up from his notes. His pen froze mid-word. "Are you implying that Ben told you to kill Frank Martin?"

Willard's voice was a barely audible whisper. "Things got out of hand..."

"Do you regret what you did?"

Louder now. Choked. "He wouldn't listen to what I said..."

"Answer the question, Mr. Stiles!" Herbert snarled.

"He made me feel like an insect! He wanted to destroy everything I ever loved! He wanted to kill me, just like he killed my father! Just like he killed...he killed..." Willard' voice trailed off, superseded again by the shy, hesitant introvert in lieu of the shrieking maniac. "What was I supposed to do? I only did what Ben told me. What was I supposed to do?"

The last sentence was made nearly indecipherable by an elapsing sob. Dr. West took off his glasses and folded them neatly in his lap. Without the lenses, his eyes were sharp and predatory, animal eyes.

"Mr. Stiles," he said, "believe me when I say I know exactly how you feel."

Willard looked up at him, his expression unreadable. His face was constantly shifting, his teeth always grinding, his eyes, though innocent and almost childlike, incessantly darting back and forth. A weaker man would be unsettled.

Dr. Herbert West was many things, but weak was not one of them.

He picked up his glasses, instantly changing back to the meek, scholarly man he had been when he entered the room, making that lean starved-animal look disappear.

"Tell, me, Mr. Stiles. Do you believe in life after death?

Willard tilted his head, a curiously rodent-like gesture. The question had obviously come as a surprise to him. "Cathryn used to talk about Jainism... reincarnation. Is that what you meant?"

Dr. West shook his head, chuckling. "Oh, no. I'm in anthropology, not theology. And I find the entire concept of religion laughably implausible." Something changed in his face-- the stony set of the mouth, the humor dying in his eyes. "What I meant was, do you believe the body can continue to fire synapses even after brain death has occurred?"

Willard thought back to the night in the house, when he had slammed the trap over Ben and heard his high, keening death-squeal, only seeing him alive and unharmed at the top of the steps later that night, waiting to leap onto his face, ready to tear him apart. His mouth twitched. "I don't really know."

"Neither did the higher powers at Miskatonic University," Dr. West said. His voice was flat and calm, but a tic in his left eye pulsed rhythmically. "And as you know, people tend to be threatened by...things they don't understand. Unfamiliar things. I was ridiculed for my studies and denied funding for any further research. And to make matters worse, I'm now the laughingstock of every on the Miskatonic campus."

Willard remained hunched and silent. It was impossible to tell if he was listening or not.

"Can't you empathize, Mr. Stiles?" Dr. West said, leaning forward, demanding his attention. "Don't you remember how none of them would recognize your rats as anything other than disgusting pests? How they wouldn't believe that they were just as clean and civil as humans, if not more-so?"

Willard remembered. There were people, all kinds of people, in front of the courthouse, shouting and yelling in loud voices. Hands in his face. Microphones. Camera flashes. INSANE MURDERER FOUND IN VERMIN-INFESTED HOUSE. But they hadn't been vermin--no. They were a family. His family.

"Why are you telling me this, Dr. West?" Willard asked softly.

Dr. West's blue eyes glimmered behind the lenses of his spectacles. "I don't think you're a madman, Mr. Stiles. I think you're gifted."

"Hey, doctor," a voice said mockingly from the doorway. "Visiting hours are up!"

Dr. West calmly closed his notebook and placed it back in his satchel. "Thank you very much for your interview," he said, standing to leave.

"Goodbye," Willard said politely. Then he looked up, face blank, eyes dim. "Will you be coming back?"

"Oh, soon." Dr. West smiled unpleasantly. "Very, very soon."

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**This was co-written with Emily Eccentric. We don't own Willard or Herbert. We own the occasional OC.**

**See if you caught the reference to another Crispin Glover movie. Leave the answer in your review.**

**Oh, and all reviews are welcome. It gets a little unintentionally slash-y in some of the later chapters, though neither Emily nor I know where it came from... Lilith.

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Just a note: this takes place a few months after the events of Willard, but really only uses the characters from the Re-Animator series. I know it's kind of a clumsy fit into canon, but I hope you enjoy it anyways! - Emily.**


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